This is what benmw333 is referring to. The Panasonic Let's. Despite how bulky it looks, it weighs about the same as the macbook air. It's basically used by anyone who isn't a manager, designer or software developer. You see them everywhere.

https://biz.panasonic.com/jp-ja/products-services/letsnote/l...

Wow - look at this picture:

https://content.biz.panasonic.com/jp-ja/fai/15800/raw

This is not from a wayback machine copy of dynamism.com - this is a new, Windows 10 laptop in 2020 (!)

HDMI, VGA, 3 USBs, ethernet, and apparently 20 hours battery life! What's not to like?

Well, the best it gets is an i7 (and most of the models are i5, or even i3), so that could be a real pain if the procuring manager is a cheapskate.

Also, the screens are 1920x1200 across the board for the Let's, which is the same pixel density as a 1080p 16:9 monitor.

> Also, the screens are 1920x1200 across the board for the Let's, which is the same pixel density as a 1080p 16:9 monitor.

Without saying sizes you can't saying anything about pixel density.

And it has an optical drive?!?

Panasonic tends to refresh internals while keeping externals the same, although performance still sucks.

This variant was once offered in the US market something like a decade ago for "business-rugged" use under the Toughbook brand, but that magnesium exterior shell commanded a high price point; I suspect the ThinkPad T series would have been a direct competitor at the time with better performance options and being much cheaper.

Those things have looked the same for at least 15 years.

I remember checking out new laptops from Japan and being amazed at how small they are... With zero change, they now look antiquated :D

What is wrong/weird with it?

It's twice as thick compared to even a mid range Lenovo or Dell laptop, to start with?

Optical drivers still seem to be a thing...

And I don't think I've ever seen a circular touchpad before!

Based on the worn-out spot on my touchpad, it seems like I mostly use a circular area on it.

It looks like it would've entered the market in 2006?

Wow. 19.5h of battery life!

Wow! 12", 19.5h battery, under 1kg and still got VGA and an optical drive? Were can i buy one??

Thicker than VGA and Ethernet jack... without oversized touchpad... if it has upgradable RAM, disks and battery... where is the Amazon link?

Yep, I owned one that I purchased in 2008. Mine was the size of a typical netbook (of course they had models with normal sizes), yet it was a fully featured laptop.

The case was from magnesium alloy and it weighted exactly 2 lbs (less than a book of the same size I couldn't tell I had it in my backpack).

Perhaps today it might not seem like a feat but that was 12 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB0_g9U9Dc8

Is that.... No it can't be... Is that a CD ROM Tray? On a new production 2020 laptop?

I used to work on software with a lot of international customers. On every release we had to go through rigorous testing to ensure our product could be installed off of CD-ROMs solely for use by the Japanese market.

This was 10 years ago, but even then CD-ROMs seemed antiquated. It doesn't surprise me that Japan would be one place they're still common.

Well, Japanese love CDs. If I'm not mistaken, Japan is the place where collecting music CDs and such still is very much a thing. I think it's pretty nice, really.

They call it "vinyl" and they sport very fashionable beards.

IMO Most Japanese tech geeks laughs why MacBook Air is advertised as "light" laptop. There are more lighter and more functional laptops available in Japan.

Why are they emphasizing the optical disc drive so much?

People in Japan still buy and use a lot of physical media. Piracy of every kind is more harshly punished and strangely, compared to the US, people feel that they should buy the work of artists they enjoy to support them. There’s also thriving secondary markets for everything from CDs to movies to games if you can’t afford to purchase new.

Some enterprise still likes CD than USB drive because they believe it's less risk for contaminating malware.

I think this design is actually pretty cool. Wonder if it has Linux support.

I owned CF-R7 decade ago, and running Linux was very enjoyable. No drivers were needed and almost everything worked.

The only thing that Linux lacked at the time was ability to turn on-off economy mode (at the time never seen that in laptops, it was to keep charge at 80% to extend battery life). I needed to boot to windows to switch that. And functional/multimedia keys although I was able to find software to get that to work.

I would imagine the support would be better now.

Apparently it does. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Panasonic_CF-SV9

I like 1995 era laptops more than modern ones. I also like the the plastic casings of desktops back then—they feel solid, same with the mechanical keyboards!

Today companies so busy trying to “slim things down.”

P.S. why doesn’t apple release a matte display laptop? I would buy it.

Apple used to release matte display laptops. You used to be able to get a hulking 17 inch macbook pro with an optional matte display. Today, you can buy a $15 matte film.

because the reason matte is matte, is that it scatters light hitting the screen. from either side of the screen. you didn't notice how blurry your screen was when it was already blurry from the low resolution. now screens have high resolution.

feel free to put a matte transparency on your high density screen to make it a low density screen. everyone else would rather have glare.

I had one of the last models of matte display apple released. I eventually gave it up for the retina resolution.